This is the last you’ll hear from me on this subject, promise!

So I feel I may have been too hasty in summing up the polyphasic sleep experiment experience.  Now that I’ve had a few days back on "normal" sleep, I can make a much better comparisson.

First of all – in conclusion I believe that this sleep pattern is NOT something anyone can make into a lifestyle.  It is, however, useful for brief periods of time where one needs to be awake almost constantly.

On the topic of exercise and muscle recovery…  I figured the uberman sleep would not be sufficient to regenerate muscle tissue, and that I would be constantly sore.  To test this, I worked out twice per day (sometimes thrice).  My shoulders would get sore, but I would recover.  And that recovery seemed fairly quick.  Additionally I felt I was more flexible.  However, looking back now, I can see that my starting flexibility was indeed greater, but my elasticity suffered.  So I was like an old rubber band – stretched out to the max, but unable to go farther.  I felt I needed less time to warm up and that I had more energy, but this was an illusion created by the fact that my muscles never "unstretched", and the extra energy was from the frequent naps.  The same kind of energy and alertness can be gained by napping with a regular sleep schedule (though I admit you need less time if you nap regularly).

Now on a biphasic sleep schedule (I have also eliminated my alarm clock – since that’s the worst thing for you!) I have noticed that my flexibility is not that great to start, but I can stretch it easier.

My back pain, however, is significantly worse.  But it was worse as I changed back, so I’m guessing a similar situation to flexibility, where it wasn’t hurting, but it was not in a healthy state and now that it has the time to heal at night, I feel it.  I have decided to go back to other methods of fixing the pain, such as core strengthening and stretching (I was doing these during uberman, too).

The Uberman schedule constantly recharges you with naps, however, considering the "Clock and Hourglass" model (Explained at supermemo’s website, along with a strong arguement against this type of sleep pattern, you can see how this is only a temporary fix.  The body eventually forces you to sleep (thus my increasing oversleeping)

It is said that you will suffer creative and memory… reduction.  However, I noticed neither.  Of course, when I was intensely sleepy, I wasn’t remembering or creating anything.  Oftentimes my only thoughts were that next nap.  But that would be due to preoccupation, not some physical change.  But aside from continuing my Polish lessons, I did not test this.  My Polish did not suffer as a result, though this was hardly a quantitative test.

The added freetime was also a bit of an illusion.  Technically, I had created a 21 hour day (I slept 30 minutes every 4 hours, which is a total of 3 hours asleep).  However, this day was broken into very small chunks, often too small to be useful.  My schedule worked very well, however, in that I was doing things in roughly 3-4 hour blocks.  So I would finish and rush back for that nap.  But sometimes I spent the 30 minutes before and after in a daze, and sometimes an entire block was rendered useless.  Other times, I was severely limited in what I could do during my block of time.

So, though I had created more hours, they were less productive and less useful.  I was only able to do slightly more, instead of the mountains of time I had believed I would create.  In conclusion, it would be better to be on a monophasic or biphasic sleep schedule, and just spend my time more productively.  I figure if I have the willpower to try uberman, I can make myself do my chores in a timely manner, and pay attention to work better.

From all of the research I read, and my own experimentation, I would say that Uberman is a great temporary fix.  But it is like walking the edge of a knife.  It’s a delicate balance, that can have disasterous consequences.  Instead, it would be better to sleep on a biphasic schedule (sleep a large chunk at night, then have a brief nap the next afternoon), since this lines up with human physiology better. 

I’m not sure what the long-term effects of a polyphasic schedule would be.  The effects of sleep deprivation in the short term (5 weeks for me) were nearly eliminated, so there is some merit to it.

Being a dreamer, and a martial artist, I firmly believe in the power of the body to adapt, and the mind to overcome.  I have seen people do things that others would say are impossible.  So I still maintain that it might be possible to adapt so something like this.  However, it would take the right alignment of personal physiology, discipline, and environment, though.  And even then, who knows.

So after just over 5 weeks on the Uberman schedule, I’ve decided to end it.

The main reason was that this past week, I continually overslept, making each day progressively worse and undoing more and more of what I had accomplished.  I got fed up with fighting sleep each night, and ran out of active activities.

Some of the underlying problems for me are that most of what I like to do are very sedentary activities: Reading, working on the computer, playing games on the computer (or other video games), and other things like that.  I wasn’t able to keep myself busy enough with chores and things like cooking during the night, and eventually succumbed to the boredom and wanted to sleep through the time.

On the other side, being on the Uberman schedule was great.  I felt amazing most of the time.  My back hurt much less, and my flexibility was increased.  I had noticed the "heightened awareness" that some people reported, but not to the degree they’ve described.  Most of it was because of the refreshed feeling of the power-nap.  But my favorite benefit was that I felt light.  Light and springy.  I just felt healthy and alive.  Not that I didn’t normally, but this was much moreso. 

The extra time was great, but not as noticeable, since it was frequently broken up, and some days I’d wake up at just the wrong moment and be groggy until the next nap.

I still don’t think I ever managed to completely adjust.  I had only had a few times where I woke up before the alarm, and I was only remembering dreams about 1/4 of the time.  But I was close.

Anyways, the main purpose of this little experiment was to prove that it could be done, and that I could do it.  My main goal is to adopt this schedule for the month of July (at least) when I am home, so I can maximize my visitation time with friends and family, and make my work and exercise as transparent as possible.  Of course, this means I have to adhere to the very strict schedule (as do my friends and family), but in the end I think it would be very much worthwhile.

But for now, I’m going back to a more "normal" sleep schedule.  I’m not sure I can handle 100% monophasic, but I’m thinking to adopt either the Siesta schedule, or the more flexible Everyman schedule, which is about a 3 hour core sleep, with a few 20-minute naps sprinkled around.  I have to play with it and decide.

There are a few things I learned from this experiment that I will be carrying over into any and all sleep from here on out.  One is that I want to keep a regular schedule every day – even weekends.  This keeps my body on a rhythm and makes sleep much more effective.  Most people don’t realize it, but they hurt themselves every time they change their sleep schedules – even daylight savings time.  Nothing permanent of course, but enough to throw you off for a day or two.

The second thing I’ll be doing is watching my diet.  Having gone almost completely veggie has been great.  Difficult, but good.  I’ve also cut out most dairy and gluten, which I feel may be helping my digestion.  I still need to cut back on artificial sugars, though.

Lastly, I’d like (as a result of keeping to a steady schedule) to be able to eliminate the need for an alarm clock.  If you need an alarm clock to wake you, then it’s probably shaking you from the middle of a sleep phase, which can leave you feeling groggy or worse.  Waking naturally, at the end of the cycle, is much better for you.  However, your body needs to know when you’ll be getting up!  So a regular schedule (and some mental training) is a must.

I don’t want to give up on polyphasic sleep all together, however the social limitations of the Uberman schedule were difficult even for me, who works from home.  I may try a different schedule, but for the next few days I’m just going to sleep when I’m tired, and enjoy the freedom of sleeping whenever the heck I want to!

Well, it’s now been 5 weeks since I first adopted the Uberman sleep schedule, and I think I’m still adjusting.  Typically it takes about 2 weeks, during which time about 1 week of that is extreme exhaustion as your body becomes sleep deprived, and eventually adapts.  

In my case, however, I’ve had a problem with oversleeping every few days, typically between the 1:30am and 5:30am naps.  When this happens (as it did this morning) I wake feeling overly tired and bloated.  My limbs feel like lead, and my muscles refuse to respond in a timely fashion.  I also have some joint pain – especially in the back.  If you don’t know, I have a back injury from when I was 14 that still hurts, and causes some mobility problems.  Some times are worse than others, and usually a good twist & pop sets it right for a bit.  Those times, when the pain is gone, I feel like a new person.

On the Uberman sleep, the naps are so short that the body doesn’t get to stiffen up from sleep.  I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not.  At first, I speculated that it would take longer to recover from exercise, but I have found this is not true.  I’ve worked out just as hard – if not harder – and recovered as normal – if not quicker.  It could be perception, but I do feel as if I’ve recovered quicker.  I’ve definitely had less of the "day after" effect, which I attribute to more activity which helps flush the lactic acid out of the system.

I’ve actually been exercising anywhere from 2-3 times per day on this schedule.  Partially out of necessity to stay awake, but also because I want to improve my tae kwon do.

As for some of the other, predicted side effects, I’ve experienced next to none.  I was told this kind of sleep could affect the transition of short-term to long-term memory, but I haven’t seen a noticeable difference.  I’ve continued Polish lessons, as well as other learning, at a normal pace and with no additional difficulties.

I have experienced the extreme sleepiness, where it is next to impossible to stay awake.  Lately I gave in to this, but I have now resolved myself to fight it more effectively.  

I’ve debated whether or not to continue this schedule.  My original plan was to go 1 month, make the adjustment, and decide whether to continue or not – with plans to do it again for the summer if possible.  Especially with an upcoming trip to Egypt planned, I wasn’t sure I’d want to stay up all night with nothing to do.

So far, the biggest causes of unwanted, unscheduled sleep have been boredom, and comfort.  Getting too comfortable and then falling asleep was more a problem of willpower.  Boredom was also partly due to willpower (I had things I could do, but didn’t feel like doing them), and also a lack of creativity and thoughtful planning.

One of the activities I’ve just recently tried to help keep me awake was something I’d forgotten: Learning.  Normally I’ll spend some time each day reading articles, watching videos, or perusing howstuffworks.com.  But I had stopped doing that (until tonight).  It’s a good way to do something low energy, but engaging enough to keep me awake.  Great for those "just before bed" moments, when working out is too much.

To summarize my experience so far – I’d say it’s been more difficult than I first thought, and though I’m pretty sure I’m not fully adapted – the benefits are great.  I feel really great, both physically and mentally.  The extra time didn’t have the effect I first thought, which would be to allow me to do more things I enjoyed.  Rather, it lowered my stress by allowing me to slow down and spread out the things I’m currently doing, with some time for other activities, like bike riding.  I’ve also had more time to finish chores, which also lowers my stress, as I always have food on hand and (usually) have a very clean house.  

These updates have been pretty standard, so you’ll notice I’ve slowed down on them.  I think instead, during the time I would normally report on, or complain about, this sleep schedule, I will work on some creative writing – one of my goals with the sleep has been to write more, and so far I’ve only barely managed that.

Till next time…

So today marks the 4th week that I’ve been keeping to the "uberman" polyphasic sleep schedule.  To recap, this is a schedule where I sleep for 30 minutes every 4 hours.  Usually the sleep is kept to around 15-20 minutes, but it takes me a while to fall asleep, so I block off 30 minutes.

In case you’re thinking that this sounds insane, think of sleep like food.  You can eat a really big meal and be full for most of the day, or you can have small snacks all day long.  Sleep is like food for the soul (I think, anyway), so this analogy kind of works.  And if you need more info, look up the book "Why we nap" by Claudio Stampi.  It’s out of print now, but you can still find copies.

Anyways, I’ve been doing this schedule now for 4 weeks, and I can’t say I’ve adjusted yet.  Part of the problem is that every 4 or 5 days, I’ve slipped up and overslept anywhere from 1 to 4 hours.  This is problematic, as the theory is that in order to get your body to adjust and hit REM sleep in the small naps, you need to be sleep deprived until your body catches on that this isn’t changing, and makes the adaptation.

Though, despite my screw-ups, I’ve come a long way.  I can fall asleep pretty much anywhere, anytime, in about 5 minutes or so.  Normally it takes me anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours to fall asleep at night. 

I know I’m hitting my deeper phases of sleep, becasue I’m dreaming and waking up feeling like I slept all night after each nap.  Just today I woke up with a tingly feeling that lasted until my next nap.

Some of the benefits I’ve seen so far are:

• Less joint stiffness and soreness.  For someone with back, knee, and hip soreness, this is a godsend!
• Increased flexibility – the constant motion and more opportunity for stretching, combined with not sleeping in one position for 8 hours has made me feel more limber than ever.  Though my sedentary job and lifestyle tend to counteract this.
• Decreased stress.  With 21-22 waking hours in each day, I’m in no rush to get stuff done.
• Increased energy.  Each nap gives a nice boost, and I usually (usually) have a lot of energy in between naps. 
• Better schedule – in a way..  I can work overnight when everyone is asleep and everything is closed.  Then during the day I can go out and run errands, explore the world, or just relax and enjoy the simple things.

And to be fair, here are some of the negatives:

• Loneliness – 22 hours awake with nobody to talk to is tough.  Not being able to cuddle up and sleep with my wife is tougher yet.   Though we’ve found ways to make it work (I lay down with her and read or do some work or we curl up with a movie till she falls asleep), and if I’m not too sleepy, I can cuddle up until she falls asleep, then sneak away.
• Too much couch time – With all this free time you’d think I’d be all over the place.  Not yet.  I’m still adjusting, and as such have spent a lot of time on the couch working (I make websites) and playing computer games.  But as I’m less groggy, I am getting more efficient in my work, and I’m also changing what I do for entertainment to be more active (ie more TKD, less Final Fantasy)
• Rigid schedule – missing even one nap is rough.  Oversleeping is hard to avoid, and worse than missing a nap if it happens.  The schedule is also tough to fit into the rest of the world.
• Extreme groggy periods – Usually between my 1:30am and 5:30am naps, I get so tired that I need to stay physically active, or I will give in to the temptation and sleep wherever I am.  Also, when waking up from most naps, you need to jump right up to avoid getting sucked back in.  If you can get straight up, you avoid the groggy and have tons of energy, otherwise you could be fighing your eyelids for the next 4 hours…  it’s like tossing a coin sometimes.
• Boredom.  When trying to stay awake, Boredom is your biggest enemy.  Make sure you have things planned, or you can end up wanting to sleep just to pass the time.  With 22 hours, you can get a LOT done.  I usually get dishes and laundry done each night, plus cleaning the kitchen/bathroom every other day or so.  Not to mention dusting the living room, which is something that was rarely done.  Now these are all clean constantly.

A few things I’ve observed that are neither bad nor good:

• Change in appetite – being awake that long, your body craves a 4th meal (at least).  I made the mistake of supplementing with cookies and cereal.  I’ll mention why cookies are bad, but cereal was killing me with both the excess milk, and of course, the loads of fiber.
• Watch what you eat – Certain foods make you groggy.  Others take more energy to digest.  For example, a diet of mostly fresh, raw vegetables, fruits, and nuts, tends to require less sleep than one including meat.  Additionally, any sugars, caffeine, or alcohol will severely impact your sleep.  Caffeine and sugar (synthetic sugars) both affect your energy levels in extreme ways, and should be avoided anyways.  Same goes for high-carb meals.  And alcohol can depress the body enough where you miss REM sleep all together (happens to me during normal sleep, and this sleep is more delicate).  I also found I eat less at each meal.
• Don’t get too comfortable.  I’ve made the mistake a few times of sleeping curled up on the couch with my dog.  Almost each of those times I’ve slept through my 2 alarms, and once missed an appointment.  It’s best to just lay down and get comfortable enough to sleep.  I’ve also taken to sleeping on my back – something I never did before because it took too long to fall asleep.  Though when I would nap before this, I noticed laying on my back left me feeling more refreshed.
• Have backup alarms.  Oversleeping is the WORST thing that can happen on this schedule.  I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but it’s true.  In fact, for most sleep schedules, waking up out of phase can leave you messed up.  So as a general tip – sleep the same amount of time each night, and learn to wake without an alarm.   That being said, while conditioning yourself to this schedule, you need an alarm to wake up.  In fact, you’ll need 2 or 3.  I used my watch, which is pretty weak, but does the job, combined with my cell phone.  The cell phone was louder and blasted some techno.  It also vibrated, so I’d put it on a hard surface out of arms reach.  Problem is both of them turn off after 30 seconds or so, and I’ve slept through them both a few times.  So make sure you have backups!  Cause waking up is hard to do.

On my last day, I guess in honor of my struggle so far, I overslept.  Part of this was a desire to give up, and part was just not realizing what I was going.

At first, my thoughts were that since I made it my goal of 1 month, I can just give up now. 

But then I realized that I still haven’t made the complete adjustment – I still need alarms and I still have some intense sleepiness when I shouldn’t.  I know this is because of the frequency which I’ve overslept.

So I decided, armed now with more information and a fresh dose of will-power, that I’m going to go at least 2 more weeks.  During these 2 weeks I WILL NOT screw up.  If I do, then I’m done.  If I can make it work, then I will see how feasible it is to keep this schedule.  Ideally I’d like to keep this going through the summer, so I can maximize my visitation time with friends and family, while still getting my hours in for work.

This schedule isn’t for everyone, and there are variations (incidentally Siesta sleep is supposed to be the best for a vast majority of us) that might fit your lifestyle better.  I am doing this schedule not only because it is the most aggressive, but also because it fits my schedule well as a web designer who works with people 5-6 hours behind him. 

The thing to remember is that we’re all as different as we are alike.  The key is knowing yourself, and always maintaining a healthy balance, no matter what it is you do.

As I move forward, my plan is to schedule activities that are engaging and satisfying – increasing TKD practices to 3 per day (2 light ones at home, 1 tough one in the gym), writing some more, cleaning and organizing, planning and cooking meals and learning some cooking techniques, etc…  I might even take up painting, who knows!

So Jess pointed out to me that I have now been on this sleep schedule for 3 weeks.  For some reason I had been thinking this was my second week.

I don’t feel that I’ve fully adjusted yet.  The average is 2 weeks, but I’ve had a lot of "accidents" where I’ve slept in.  My naps are definitely getting into REM now, but I’m still waking up groggy rather than refreshed, and between certain naps it is very difficult to stay awake.

As cool as it is to have 21-22 free hours per day, I probably won’t do this past the end of March.  I miss sleeping for the sake of sleeping, and being able to curl up comfortably without worrying about whether or not I’m going to fall asleep.

Plus, if you don’t have a lot to do, you can get VERY bored.  And that just isn’t fun.  And you can’t just sleep it off.

Switching back to a "normal" schedule will be tough, so I may still opt for a different pattern.  I’m thinking the "Siesta" model will work for me.

I’ll probably switch back to this schedule for the month of July this summer.  This way I can have plenty of free time for catching up with friends and family, but also enough time to get my work done.  But we’ll see how the rest of this month goes. 

I realize I haven’t been nearly as dilligent with these blog posts as I had originally planned, so I’m going to try and summarize my experiences from the last few days.

I have had a few more oversleeping episodes, accompanied by some nod-offs.  However, rather than oversleeping for 4 hours, it has only been for 1 hour each of the 2 or 3 times I overslept lately, so my body is making some kind of adjustment to the schedule.

The oversleeping has been bad, because it not only leaves me so groggy that I’m nearly incapacitated, but this last time it caused me to sleep through one of my tutoring sessions!

I’ve been trying to avoid oversleeping by using 2 alarms: My wristwatch (weak) and my cell phone (better).  The cell phone goes off 1-2 minutes after the watch, and plays a techno song, as well as vibrates.  I usually leave it on a hard surface so it rattles up a storm.  However, I have apparently been turning it off and going right back to sleep.  So today I turned the volume to max, and set my laptop to go off at the same time.  Let’s just say I woke up REAL quick that time!

Another contributing factor to the oversleeping is the dog.  She likes to cuddle, and I like to let her up to nap with me.  However, 15-30 minutes is just enough time for her to get comfortable.  And when you have a warm, comfortable puppy snuggled up on your stomach/chest/neck, it makes you sleepy, too.  I swear, even if I’m working and she’s laying across my lap, I get incredibly sleepy.

So the concensus is more alarms and less dog.  At least until I’m better adjusted.

In addition to oversleeping, I’ve been missing a fair number of naps in trying to work with the "real world" schedules.  But I’ve been able to make it work many times when we thought I wouldn’t, so it hasn’t been too bad.  And missing one nap only just makes me a bit more tired until the next one.  It’s not debilitating.

Other than that, sleep has been going well, and I’ve felt pretty fine during the waking hours.  I’ve noticed my naps getting deeper (contributing to the oversleep), and I’ve had an increase in dreams, but not quite the "all the time" experience yet.

One of my main concerns is how this schedule will affect my performance in tae kwon do.  So far it’s been widely varied, but hopeful.  I had one day where I felt I was exceptionally awake, but at the same time, more relaxed than I’d ever been.  I felt fully in control, and when I worked out, everything felt right.  I had great snap on everything, and I was quick and sharp.  I was also more limber than I’d been, and my kicks stretched upwards easily.  But just yesterday I had the exact opposite, where everything felt sluggish and heavy, like I was moving through water the entire time.  I got tired quickly, and had a pretty poor workout. 

I’m guessing that once I’m adjusted, I’ll be more often in the wakeful state.  I know I’m more tired now because my sleep is getting deeper, but not finishing.  The days I’ve felt extremely lucid have been the days where I’ve either slept just right, or was just the right amount of over-tired, before the exhaustion sets in when the body is in high alert.

At the rate things are going, I’d give myself probably another full week before I’ve adjusted completely.  It’s going slower than I’d like, but I think part of that is that each week feels at least twice as long, so I feel like I’ve been doing this for months, when in reality it’s only just over 1 week.

By oversleeping, I of course mean sleeping for 4 hours.  Yep.  It happened again.  Same time as always – 1:30 – 5:30.

I woke up feeling as if I was still asleep, but not as bad as the other morning when I wrote.  I was so tired then I felt drunk.

Anyways.  My additional precautions clearly were not enough to overcome my body’s rebellion.  I don’t know if I’m proud of that, or annoyed by it.

The basic principle is that you have to "starve" yourself for sleep, and limit your sleep to the nap blocks, forcing your body to adjust to those blocks as the only times it will see sleep.  Eventually, you will adjust to be able to get restful sleep during those short blocks.  Then the new pattern becomes normal and things should level out.

Unfortunately, I’m stuck at the half-way point, oversleeping every few days and throwing my progress backwards.  It’s very frustrating. 

So to try to combat this, I had taken a few extra measures:

1. Set 2 alarms, staggered by a few minutes
2. For the second alarm, I’m using my cell phone with sound and vibration.  Then leaving it on the glass table where the vibration is the loudest.
3. Leaving a light on – it is apparently easier to wake up (and I agree with this after doing it a few days), which helps avoid falling prey to the "Sleep Inertia" and going back to sleep after waking for the alarms.
4. Eating less meats/more vegetables.  I’ve been doing this anyways, but paying more attention as it is supposed to help improve your sleep quality and reduced the number of hours needed when on monophasic sleep.

Clearly this was not enough.  Especially when you consider my tendency to be able to turn my alarm clock off, even when I was sleeping "normally" and for a full night. 

This seems to be what happened this morning.  I woke to find my cell phone on my chest, and the alarm set for 30 minutes later than when I had initially set it.  I have absolutely no memory of this.

But this tells me I need to keep the cell phone alarm out of arms reach. 

I may also need a third alarm that won’t shut off after 30 seconds.  The watch and cell phone both don’t run for very long.  So far they’ve been adequate, but now that it’s really getting tough, I’m not sure they’ll get me through.

So, all that being said, I’m in for another day where I’ll start out really tired, then I’ll be so rested that I’ll have trouble with naps, making me tired again later on and finally getting the proper naps and evening things back out.

I had considered dropping this experiment if I overslept again.  But I’ve come too far now, and I can’t give up until I’ve succeeded, or it becomes clear that I simply can’t do it.  But for the moment, there’s still hope that I can pull it off.  But only if I step up my efforts.

I almost really overslept again this morning.

Almost.

As I approach my 5:30 am nap, I tend to get very sleepy.  In addition, by this point I don’t have much to do.  It’s either too loud, or not engaging enough to keep me from passing out.

So I’m sleepy with nothing to do.  This is where I would, in the past, grab a nap, or just go to bed.  But I don’t have that option anymore.  So when I woke at 6, overly groggy both from the nap and from the time, I felt the need for a little more.  So I layed down for another 15 mins or so.

Between Jess’ alarm and the ones I set, I managed to sleepily bat them away and keep resting.

But this has led me to the belief that, although this schedule is great for maximizing my time and allowing me to do more, I’m not doing it because I either don’t have enough to do, or I can’t do it at night (big portion of my ‘free’ time) or I’m just too tired to do it.

That being seaid, I’m having trouble finding the benefits of this schedule at this time. 

I’m almost convinced now that i’m going to abandon this experiment in favor of some bi-phasic schedule.

I will probably try this again for the summer, when we are travelling and my wife has off, but I still need to work.  But again, if I can’t sit at a computer that late for that long without falling asleep – then this won’t work.

The real problem is that my job is sedentary, as is my lifestyle.  I had hoped to use this schedule to get the boring, sedintary stuff done behind the scenes and go out and do something active during the day, but so far I haven’t been able to do this, and have needed to try to work during the day to cover the nighttime hours that I spend staring at teh wall.

So I had an interesting experience this morning.

First – a little background. 

The past few days, I have been extremely groggy just before my 1:30 am nap, up until just after my 5:30 am nap.  This has resulted in several oversleeps, which I have been extra viligant of.  Usually, during this time, it is a struggle to keep my eyes open.  I don’t believe it’s so much because I’m exhausted – it doesn’t happen any other times and I’m usually just as tired.  I think it has more to do with my day/night, light/dark rythms.  Or, maybe more believably, it is when I would hit my deepest sleep phases back when I was sleeping on a monophasic schedule.  Which makes sense to me.

This morning, though, at right about 4:00 I was doing all I could not to fall out of my chair, when suddenly it was like a fog lifted, and I was no longer tired.  It was almost instantaneous, and a little disconcerting!

But, this tells me that my body is continuing to adjust, and I’m still on track to eventually making the switch.  I also had a fairly vivid dream during my 5:30am nap today, which is another good sign.  This means I’m hitting my REM sleep within my brief naps.  Another sure sign that my body is making the adjustment.

I’m still not 100% there, and I’m sure there’s still a fair bit of struggle left to overcome, but it seems things might start becoming gradually more and more downhill from here on out.

One of these challenges is that I tend to let the dog sleep with me for my naps, but this makes me that much more comfortable, and thus that much more difficult to wake up!  But I’m doing good and reminding myself to snap awake when the time comes, and get active as soon as possible.

With the amount of times I’ve overslept, I can’t really say how far along in this process I am anymore, except that I ultimately started just over a week ago (going on my 12th day).  Yesterday I overslept twice.  Once I fell asleep with the wife (she wasn’t feeling well, so I curled up with her and got too comfortable) – that was a roughly 4 hour oversleep.  Then, the next morning I woke and was so groggy that I cancelled my TKD class and took a few more naps.  Unfortunately it was almost another 4  hours (on and off) before I was up and moving again.  A shower reinvigorated me, and from then on I was wide awake.

So, I still have a hump to get over, and it looks like it’s not going to be easy, but I have a few more tricks up my sleeve, and I’ve steeled my resolve.  To me, this is more than curiosity or getting more free time.  It’s also a challenge of willpower.

I’m still surprised that I’m not more tired (but maybe with all this oversleeping, I really shouldn’t be).  Though, I’ve had times between certain naps where I couldn’t hold my eyes open or walk a straight line, it wasn’t so much because my body was tired as it was that I never fully regained control over it after waking.

I know that doesn’t make a ton of sense, so let me explain.

What I think is happening is that I’m hitting my REM sleep, but waking up right in the middle of it.  That leaves my brain all addled and confused, and wanting to get back to sleep to finish the cycle.  Physically, I feel great.  But my brain is a bit slow at the controls, and I continually nod off.  This only usually happens just before, or just after, my 5:30am nap.  This has been the most difficult one, and really the only major challenge as far as the sleeping goes.

Today was probably the first day that actually felt the way I had expected my days to be when I first thought of the idea of working from home overseas.  I spread my work out into small chunks over the entire day, and was able to get chores done, relax and play some games, cook a good dinner, study some Polish and get out of the house and walk around a bit.  The only thing I didn’t do is go explore the city some more, but that takes a significantly longer time, and I haven’t quite optimized my schedule to allow that yet.

Other than a few spans of extreme sleepiness, I haven’t really noticed any ill-effects.  Though I do feel that if I don’t get up and do something active with a certain amount of frequency, I will start to notice joint troubles.  My neck is already a little sore from spending so much time on the computer.

The most difficult part of this whole transition has been the fact that I can’t curl up and sleep with my wife.  Well, I can, but only 30 minutes or less, and I have to worry about my alarm interrupting her already spotty sleep.  I also can’t curl up and take random naps.  At least, not yet.  I’m not sure if I’ll be able to eventually, but sometimes, when I’m feeling a bit lazy, and that blanket is looking awefully inviting, I just wish I could curl up and doze off for a few hours.  Especially when the dog is asleep on my lap.  That’s like a sleeping pill! 

I’ll try to check in every few days or so to report on how it’s going.